Here’s a tour of Ogden, UT through our Hipstamatic eye…

Our food today from either plant or animal origin, is not only deficient in nutrients, but also full of pollutants and farming chemicals. Our modern food process heavily denatures foods and deeply affects not only our food supply, but also our Earth, making it difficult to foster equilibrium and health.

Pesticides create extra work for the immune system, consequently allowing other carcinogens and pathogens to filter into the body and affect our health. In addition to this, today’s mass production of foods and factory farms are leaving a heavy carbon footprint on our planet.

Buying local and organic is your assurance that products have been grown and handled sans procedures that use persistent, toxic chemical inputs.

Some good reasons to buy and eat local and organic foods:

• Keep chemicals off your plate. Pesticides are poisons designed to kill living organisms, and thus are harmful to humans. Many approved pesticides were registered long before extensive research linked these chemicals to some cancers and other diseases. Supporting organic, local agriculture is a way to prevent any more of these chemicals from getting into the air, water and food supply.
• Protect water quality. Pesticides pollute the public’s primary source of drinking water in over half the country’s population.
• Organic farmers work in harmony with nature. Three billion tons of topsoil erodes from croplands in the U.S. each year, and much of it is due to conventional farming practices, which often ignore the health of the soil. Organic agriculture respects the balance necessary for a healthy ecosystem; wildlife is encouraged by including forage crops in rotation and by retaining fencerows, wetlands and other natural areas.
• Save energy. More energy is now used to produce synthetic fertilizers than to till, cultivate and harvest all the crops in the U.S.
• Support your local farmers. Although more and more large-scale farms are making the conversion to organic practices, many organic farms are small, independently owned and family operated farms. Organic agriculture can be a lifeline for small farms because it offers an alternative market where sellers can demand fair prices for crops. Keep in mind that the cost of “organic certification” can be quite costly, and not always necessary if you know where your food is coming from. Buying local allows you to peek directly into the farming practices used for your food, supports local economy and reduces your carbon footprint.
• Support a true economy. Organic foods might seem expensive at first. However, your tax dollars pay for hazardous waste clean-up and environmental damage caused by conventional farming.  It also supports the organic farmers that are nourishing our Earth. Buying local and organic is voting with your dollars, every day.
• Promote biodiversity. With the boom of conventional, mass-produced farming, planting large plots of land with the same crop year after year tripled farm production between 1950 and 1970…but the lack of natural plant life diversity has greatly denatured our Earth’s soil.
• Nourish our planet and health. Organic farming starts with the nourishment of the soil, which in turn nourishes our plants. Well-maintained soil produces strong, healthy plants that have more nutrients than conventionally grown produce, which helps to sustain the health of our body and the planet.
• Support our local farms! In Utah, there are many ways to support local farms. Below are a few helpful links to explore and join a Community Supported Agriculture group (CSA) in your area:

Local Harvest: http://www.localharvest.org

CSA Utah http://www.csautah.org

Slow Food Utah http://www.slowfoodutah.org

Bell Organic http://bellorganic.com

Information in this article was adapted from materials provided by The Institute for Intergrative Nutrition, Whole Foods Market and the Organic Trade Association.

The wind lessened on the East Slope, so I picked my way below the ridge and found a wet rock to lean on, and wait.

Six Days Previous: Grease stained and faded pink, a once proud office leather couch begged for attention. Six month old issues of Utah Business collected dust on an antique side table. Empty wooden mail slots perked at the arrival of the postal worker, but the same discount office equipment magazine was the box’s only friend. I dog-eared my dream desk in each issue, now if only I had an office. Resigned to the reception counter on the second floor, I sauntered to the hall bathroom for amusement. Whoever decided on The Creation of Adam wallpaper was a cheap and brilliant designer. Its function is faux Vegas, but at the urinal, the greatest fresco of mankind became the motivation for escape!

Not just a beer in front of the dog-days of summer TV escape, an adventure. A three day Walden, before all personal motivation was lost to an artificial existence. I reentered the sterile hallway and asked the lonely bronze bust atop a marble hutch where I should go. He watched me pass a dozen times a day like the portraits inside Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion. I confronted him. “Ok, Bronzy, you see everything that goes on around here, before I end up like you, I would like to remember what’s it’s like to live, any ideas?” The Internet.

I ripped through search engines, dropped pop-ups, and barreled through useless facts until I heard the clomping feet of my boss. I quickly tabbed to our business page, just in case. I reiterated the tired and bogus assurance his business plan was destined for greatness. Effective, he clomped back to re-genius himself.

I stumbled upon summitpost.com. I figured it was time to climb a mountain, although my only hiking consisted of nature walks on local trails, no significant elevation gain. My definition of summiting was reluctantly pulling the last stair on the second floor of the mostly vacant, cookie-cutter business complex which imprisoned a cemetery of dreams. So, I picked something thirteen-year-old Boy Scouts do; summit Kings Peak.

I found snooze on the Blackberry, then my mind instantaneously completed a laundry list of to-do’s which forced me to rise. I checked the backpacking list I printed before my three hour morning nap, made final decisions on which items to leave, reviewed the itinerary, made oatmeal, tossed packs in the SUV, picked up rented sleeping bags, cook kits, and headlamps, hit Canyon Sports for a doggie pack and failed, then realized I was late for work. I felt the dreaded buzz in my cargo-shorts pocket. Do I answer? Harry, my Border Collie mix, panted in my ear. The office was not dog friendly, but I didn’t feel at this point I had a choice. I reassured Clomper over the phone I would make an appearance, and drove directly to work.

Less than an hour behind the reception counter, a squeal from the bitch in the adjacent office crashed through the halls, “Whose damn dog is this?” The dog plan worked to perfection, operation ditch work resumed. I told Clomper it was probably best if the dog and I left for the day.

I escaped and picked up summit partner Todd, then drove to REI where we found an overpriced doggie pack. Finally geared up, we drove the packed Escape east of Salt Lake City through Parleys canyon and past Park City. Feeling sleepy and famished we stopped in Evanston, WY for some pick-me-up juice (a Monster drink) and food (peppered beef jerky). Back on the road and two sips into the Monster, my palate rejected the eclectic combination, so I stopped eating jerky.

One missed turn later; we pulled into Henry’s Fork trailhead and snagged the last parking spot. We geared up. As virgin backpackers, we quickly realized our packs were either too small or we brought enough provisions for every Utah Boy Scout. We divvyed the food, smooshed our stuff sacks, and forced our packs to house every imaginable amenity. Finally, I clasped Harry’s pack and we began hiking. A quick check of the watch: 8:00pm.

After four hours of walking, the pack’s side straps began eating my muffin-top belly, so I slowed and relinquished the lead to Todd. My Shoulders were sore, but my legs were giving up. Instead of strong footfalls, I kicked rocks and began losing my balance. Our headlamps began catching reflective material among pines suggesting other campers. In the dark and without a GPS, it was difficult to pinpoint our location but looking at the topo, I estimated Dollar Lake was near. I joked, “I think it’s time to pull over for the night, Todd.” He continued and I followed with Harry tugging me up the terrain. The tree line broke exposing an expanse of mountain grasses. Rain drops teased us. Todd quickly found a boulder resting in a field and labeled it home. I unloaded, but the ghost pack remained. Watch check, 1am.

Todd murmured a snore and I felt alone. Raindrops fell just consistently enough to warrant Harry sleeping in the tent. He butted against my bag, sleepy; he expelled a toxic, nose-hair burning stench. The synthetic bag failed to filter the smell. Todd, unconscious and open mouthed, inhaled the noxious fumes. I shifted from one bad position to another. There was no escape. In addition, my back held enough pain to delay sleep. Harry again expelled. This time, I sucked it in hoping for immunity. This was my Walden?

Sunlight drenched a distant mountainside. We had camped inside a half-moon of flattened peaks. The sun crept toward us across the valley floor. I was boiling water on the Pocket Rocket when I realized, we had awaken within scenery found in the pages of adventure magazines. The inconveniences of yesterday were just that. Todd spoke from within the Wal-Mart dome tent, “Dude, your dog has acid ass.”

“Morning to you too, you’re not going to believe the view out here.”

After a backpackers breakfast of oatmeal and blueberry’s, I readied our summit pack. A cloudless sky caused me to abandon my extra fleece and rain jacket, instead including a thin windbreaker. Tender shoulders and stiff legs convinced me to eliminate other miscellaneous items until the pack was left with only a water filter, map, trail mix, and a poncho.

We walked switchbacks until we breached Gunsight Pass gaining our first view of Painter Basin. The expanse was sprinkled with small lakes and streams. Staring at God’s country, I nearly missed the flock of domestic sheep grazing on the immediate slope. Harry spied the livestock and tugged, testing the durability of his leash and my legs. The trail wound through the ranging wool taunting Harry. The temptation was there, but I resisted unlatching the herding breed.

After two and half hours of hiking, the ridgeline leading to Kings Peak became visible. We determined the dots on the ridge were people. I dug out my water-filtration device and ripped it from its cardboard box careful not to lose the instructions. I fumbled with the tubes and began to pump. Todd dribbled trail-mix when responding to some passer-bys. With GPS in hand, the through hikers explained the summit was only a vertical mile away. We stared at the summit and watched clouds race over the peak toward our position. I disassembled the filter and repacked. We only sat for thirty minutes, but it was long enough for my legs to lose momentum.

The hike steepened and each step became work. Doubt entered my mind, and I replaced it with positive affirmations. I completed my fourth marathon only three months prior and although I hadn’t run since, I couldn’t have lost that much endurance? Todd didn’t exercise but instead, worked a physically demanding job which proved helpful as he passed me. My gait slowed and I became aware of each step. In the shadow of clouds, loose straps on my pack began to flap. Goosebumps covered my exposed arms and legs. Dried sweat pulled my skin under the elbow and knee joints.  I thought about my windbreaker but it looked worse on the ridge so I toughed it out. Booming and cracking filled the valley. Todd turned and shouted back, “I hope that lightning doesn’t come near us?”

Harry, now off leash was bored with my gait and ran ahead to join Todd. I stopped; feeling a bit betrayed by man’s best friend, I watched Harry prance behind Todd. On cue, Harry looked back. Physical doubt again entered my mind. This time I paid more attention as I responded with answer’s to unending “what if’s?” Lost in personal conversation, I failed to notice the considerable lead Todd had stretched over me. Todd shouted something and the wind carried it away. I gave him the keep going wave of encouragement. Large rain drops began to splat on dry rocks forming interesting patterns. Finally one fell on my arm. Flashes of light consistently agitated neighboring peaks.

I could see the finish of our hike and the beginning of the actual summit push. Upon gaining the ridge, the wind asserted itself as boss. The views of multiple valleys were blurred by dust particles and intermittent splashes of water. Then, Thor dropped his mighty hammer and a group of us on the ridge shook. Dime sized hail began pelting rocks, dirt, humans, and dogs. An impromptu speed dressing contest lightened the mood. I wrestled on my wind breaker then wondered why it was labeled as such? Two more hikers joined us. Six of us deliberated on the safety of summiting. The rain slickened rocks and strong winds upset a girlfriend of one of the hikers. “I don’t feel safe,” she stated. I agreed, but I didn’t hike this far for nothing. I tell Todd, “I’m ok if you are?” Todd stepped with life and vigor upon the first boulder and said, “Yep, let’s go.”

My foot failed to land on top of the first boulder and instead kicked the front. The elasticity in my quadriceps was missing. I used my right hand to pull my dead leg upon the rock. Ahead was a fortress of slick boulders and I was not prepared to battle the elements. I continued. Todd disappeared and I conquered one boulder at a time. Then, the frightened girlfriend passed me with her confident mate. She commented through zipped Gore-Tex, “I guess I’m going up.” “Good luck,” I responded. Noticing her struggle past, I looked back toward the ridge, and realized I had only gained 90 feet. I quit.

Sore but refreshed after a long nights sleep through blustery conditions, I woke. The sun welcomed us on the trail home. I repeated the lines, “no, but he did,” to every hiker inquiring about summit attempts. I should have been disappointed and somewhere inside, I was. But in a strange way, I had conquered many demons. Happiness resided with knowing, for one weekend, I ruled myself. I became social on the trail, commenting on scenery, and joking about my struggles.

Two Weeks Later: I placed my coffee mug in a small cardboard box next to two boxes of Green Tea, a fork, and four cans of tuna. Grinning, I moved behind the reception counter and placed my favorite pens, a stapler, and my beta fish in the same box. Clomper hovered, “So, you gonna go climb more mountains?”

Ignoring the sarcasm, I mumbled, “Yea, planning on it.” I stepped toward the exit, reached over the counter, grabbed a photograph of lodgepole pines swallowing a winding Yellowstone boardwalk, and left.

Our hope in publishing this piece is to grow support for our defending MLS Cup champs – Real Salt Lake – season and our national team this summer, in one of the greatest sporting events in the world – World Cup 2010. All for the love of The Beautiful Game.

With huge thanks to Roy and the Marriott Library, the Utah Soccer Association and the numerous players, coaches, and unnamed individuals that cultivated a successful soccer community in Utah!

The Special Collections Department, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, has established the Utah Soccer Archives to collect photos, films, scrapbooks, memorabilia, game programs, oral histories from players, fans, referees, or anything else that might help us keep this history alive. For more information about how you can help, Roy Webb at roy.webb@utah.edu, or call the Special Collections Department at (801) 581-8863.

Cheers!

Author’s Preface

First, a disclaimer: writing about the history of soccer is far outside my comfort zone. If it was Green and Colorado River history, which I’ve studied for over 25 years, I would do this in my sleep and standing on my head, or “backwards in high heels” as was said of Ginger Rogers. But there was no soccer played where I grew up, in a small town in New Mexico; we had football, baseball, and basketball, along with wrestling and track, but I knew of no one who played soccer. And I’ve never had much interest in sports anyway; I never played any team sports in school save for a brief stint on the golf team in high school, being an adherent of the philosophy of “no pain, no pain.” I switch channels after the weather, and skim through the sports pages, muttering about “muscle bound parasitical millionaires,” pausing only to read an article about a particularly juicy scandal or perhaps something about Tiger Woods.

But that changed when both my daughters, but particularly my younger daughter Sarah, became soccer players. Sarah started in kindergarten, when the team was a cute cluster of coed kids running after the ball on a little field. Then she progressed through recreational league play, and after a tearful goodbye to her rec team, moved up to playing goalkeeper on a comp league team. She’s played on boys teams, where she learned firsthand how boys react to a girl who is as good or better than they are–she gave back as good as she got, and has scars to prove it [she got cleated on the inside of her left knee in one game, losing skin and blood; as she later proudly said "it was the first time I had to be carried off the field!"; you can imagine how I felt!]. Like thousands of soccer parents in Utah, I found myself driving to practices four times a week, planning vacations around soccer seasons and goalie training camps and tournaments, getting to know the owners of soccer stores in the valley on a first name basis (while they practically memorized my credit card numbers!), and using Mapquest and Google maps to find hidden soccer fields in such far flung outposts of surburbia such as Roy, Tooele, American Fork, Heber, and Brigham City.

So along the way in this process I started reading articles about soccer in the paper, and now, with her, go to MLS games, am a big fan of the Univerisity of Utah women’s soccer team, watch English premier league games on the Fox soccer channel, know the meaning of obscure acronyms such as USSF (US Soccer Federation); FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association); CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football), and of course USA (Utah Soccer Association). We bemoan the travails of the Real Salt Lake (I think the team owner jinxed his team by making shady backroom deals to get his stadium, but that’s just my opinion), and in 2007 traveled to Colorado to watch the MLS all-star game. We would love to go to the World Cup or the European Cup or the Copa del Oro, and are now familiar with the names of teams and players all over the world. So I know it’s not usual to dedicate a short history such as this to anyone, but I will say that if it wasn’t for Sarah I wouldn’t be writing about something I feel like I still know very little about.

Introduction

Like most Americans, if I thought about soccer—which was very seldom—I thought that it was a “foreign” game, that had only come to this country in the 1970s with Pele’. Football, baseball, and basketball, those were American games. Upon reading the book Soccerhead: An accidental journey into the heart of the American game¹, by Jim Haner, however, I realized how wrong I’d been. As he states, soccer is “…not a foreign game after all, … it belongs to us by birthright, we owned it a long time ago, before we started forgetting everything we ever knew about our own history.” [p. 20] This collective amnesia about the history of soccer is as true in Utah as it is in the rest of the country, for I found a curious thing as I started to research this history: if you look at any history of Utah, even a history of sports, soccer seemingly does not exist. Noted Utah sports historian Dr. Larry Gerlach of the University of Utah claims little knowledge of Utah soccer history. Likewise, histories of communities in Utah such as Eureka, in Juab county never even mention soccer, focusing instead on baseball teams. Yet as will be seen, Eureka was a powerhouse of soccer in the early 1900s and teams from there won the state championship on a number of occasions. Daily articles—sometimes more than one article a day—appeared in the Salt Lake and Ogden newspapers and in other newspapers around the state. The same is true for histories of counties and communities along the Wasatch front; they rarely mention soccer, even though games would draw thousands of fans throughout the 1920s and 1930s, and soccer writers such as William Service and H.O. Turville wrote detailed articles that appeared frequently in the Salt Lake Telegram and Salt Lake Tribune. Soccer is not mentioned in the Utah History Encyclopedia or any of the other general histories of the state. And it works both ways: the standard works on the history of soccer in America, Fould’s America’s Soccer Heritage: A history of the game² and the Encyclopedia of American Soccer History³ by Roger Allaway, do not mention Utah. The National Soccer Hall of Fame and Museum, in Oneonta, New York, had no files on Utah soccer history in their otherwise comprehensive soccer research library, save for one obscure article in the 1924 edition of the Spalding Soccer Football Guide. So most of the research for this history for the period of the early 20th century through the 1930s came from newspapers through the University of Utah’s Utah Digital Newspapers Index. For the later years, oral histories with players and officials in Utah, as well as the list of championship teams and the Utah Soccer Hall of Fame, maintained by the Utah Soccer Association.

Soccer is an ancient game. A form of it was played in China, in ancient Greece, and on both sides of the Atlantic for hundreds, if not thousands of years. In England in the late Middle Ages, whole villages would get together for a wide ranging game of kicking a stuffed leather ball over hill and dale; the games would go on for hours and sometimes result in mayhem and even deaths. It got to the point that the Mayor of London banned football in 1314, and King Edward II followed suit a few years later. Football was officially suppressed but the passion for the game was so strong that it continued to be played, even on pain of imprisonment. When the Jamestown settlers came to this continent in 1609, they found the Native Americans playing something similar, in which villages would play on a field that was up to three miles long, using a ball made of stuffed deerskin, and wagering everything they owned on the outcome. These games would go on for several days. It was left to the Victorians in England to bring some dignity to soccer, as they tried to do to just about everything else, and the F.A., the Football Association, was formed in 1863. A similar governing body soon followed in this country, and within a decade college students and immigrants were playing soccer on the east coast of the US. With so many immigrants coming from England to Utah, soccer followed them, and the first team in Utah was formed in Salt Lake City in 1882 (by contrast, soccer was not introduced to Brazil until 1888.). From the 1890s to World War II, soccer was as big a sport in urban Utah as any other, and was played by people as diverse as roughneck miners in hardscrabble camps and schoolkids in small communities such as Monroe, Richfield, Vernal, and even Panguitch.

In the 1890s and early 1900s, mining communities dominated soccer in Utah. Teams from Eureka and Carbon County battled it out for the Daynes Challenge Cup, first awarded in 1906, with teams from Salt Lake, Ogden, and Provo. Eureka was a powerhouse of soccer for many years before World War I, and won both the Daynes Challenge Cup and the inaugural Schubach Cup. World War I stopped play, but after the war, soccer revived and the center of the action shifted to the Wasatch Front. All through the 1920s, competition intensified for the state championship, between teams of immigrants from Europe. The first was the Caledonians, a Salt Lake based club made up of immigrants from Great Britain: Welsh, Scots, and British. Next came the Vikings, formed by Norwegians Marthinus Strand and Pete Ecker in 1922, that contained most of Utah’s famous skiers, such as Alf, Karre, and Sverre Engen; Einar Fredbo, Hvalvar Hvalstad, and Axel Andresen. AC Germania, a German-speaking social club, formed a fussbalmannschaft in 1927, followed quickly by Hollandia. These clubs fought against teams sponsored by the railroads and smelters, along with squads from Ogden and Park City.

By the 1930s, the “golden age” of Utah soccer, the immigrant teams had come to dominate soccer in Utah. The Caledonians were the first to rise to stardom, followed by the Vikings in the middle years of the decade, and then AC Germania took over during the later 1930s. These three squads controlled the league all through the years of the Great Depression and the first months of World War II. Now they also had new cups to play for, with the introduction of the Strand Cup and the Salt Lake Telegram trophy. Even though they were the powers in soccer, they were not the only teams fighting for the prizes. Hollandia was still a contender, as were the Ogden Blue Pines, the Park City team, and a new entry, a powerful, fast team from Bingham. Other teams at the time were sponsored by Barr Chevrolet, a local dealership, Singer Sewing Machines, and the Oregon Short Line Railroad. Games were played at Ogden’s Lorin Farr Park, at Cummings Field and later Rice Stadium on the University of Utah campus, and at Fairmont Park in Salt Lake City, and drew crowds that numbered in the thousands.⁴

World War II again interrupted soccer’s development in the state, with the only people playing the sport being German and Italian POWs in their camps. A few of the players from the champion teams of the 1930s still played, those that were not in the military or working in war industries. But the war almost killed off soccer in Utah altogether. The sport stayed alive in Utah largely through the efforts of one man, Hermann Neumann, a member of AC Germania. Neumann was a tireless advocate for soccer, even a “fanatic” about the sport. He made himself a pest at school board and county commission meetings, always badgering local officials to create soccer programs for Utah’s youth and set aside soccer fields. He started a high school program at West High School, and with the help of Arthur Zander, another AC Germania member, was successful in creating a Utah high school soccer league by the 1950s that included teams from South, East, West, Highland, Olympus, and East high schools. He also organized all-star teams to play against squads from neighboring states in exhibition games.

In the 1960s, soccer underwent a revival in Utah. It was still played by immigrants and sons of immigrants, but a new element had been added: Hispanic and other ethnic teams. The Incas, a team composed mostly of immigrants from South America, became a favored team in the 1960s, joined by two teams of Greek immigrants that made for some hard-fought contests. The Vikings and AC Germania were still active, and indeed are the only two clubs formed in the 1920s that are still in existence today. Dedicated players would meet every Saturday at Fairmont or Sunnyside Park for regular games. It was in the 1970s, though, that soccer suddenly took off and became what one journalist called “the sport that ate suburbia.” There were three reasons for this: a new wave of Hispanic immigrants, from Central America and Mexico who brought their national game with them; the rise of the youth soccer movement; and the passage of Title IX of the US Code, which brought girls and women into the game. The Latinos who came to Utah in increasing numbers were just as passionate about soccer as the Europeans, and today comprise a significant percentage of people playing soccer in Utah. Youth soccer, which had simmered from early beginnings in the 1920s, exploded in the 1970s as baby boomer parents found a game that their children could play without fear of injury or rejection. Today there are over 47,000 young people enrolled in youth soccer programs, and that doesn’t even count the junior high and high school programs. Finally, Title IX—even thought it was fought by Utah school systems—meant that girls who wanted to play sports finally had one to call their own, which led to not only junior high and high school girls soccer teams, but the highly successful college teams fielded by BYU, the University of Utah, and other Utah colleges. It was also in the 1970s that efforts began to bring a professional soccer team to Utah. The first teams, the Golden Spikers, was quickly followed by the Utah Pioneers in the 1970s. They were both short-lived, as was the Salt Lake Sting of the 1990s. At the end of the 20th century, the Utah Blitzz showed real promise of bringing professional soccer to Utah, but despite winning national championships in 2001 and 2004, was ultimately caught up in world events and sadly, only lasted a few years. It wasn’t until Major League Soccer granted an expansion franchise to Real Salt Lake in 2004 that professional soccer finally took root in the Beehive State. From those early days to the present, soccer has always had a home in Utah.

Well…we’re looking for you! If you seriously enjoy Utah and all its recreational glory–hit us up! We’re looking for a few good folks who enjoy Utah and partake of it’s offerings!

Here is a quick look at what we are looking for:

• weekend warrior type…those who get out and cycle, mt bike, hike, backpack, ski, ride, run, climb or just take in nature.
• stories rooted in the culture of Utah.
• stories based in Utah or it’s outdoor offerings.

Contact us if you are interested. We should be able to get back to ya within a day or two.